‘R.I.P.D.’ Is Latest Hollywood Bomb

The $130 million-plus movie, starring Ryan Reynolds and Jeff Bridges, may only draw $11 million this weekend at the box office, according to early estimates, making it the latest in a string of recent Hollywood flame-outs.

“It’s a complete disaster,” one insider says of the costly feature.

Another analyst points out that, as of Friday afternoon, “R.I.P.D.” is 10% behind “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World,” which only earned $10.5 million its opening weekend.

The lightly-marketed supernatural pic, about a dead cop who joins a police force in the afterlife, had been tracking in the weeds all year. Universal recently pointed out that the crowded weekend, not to mention strong summer holdovers, would make competition “fierce” for the picture.

Still, the chilly reception is a wake-up call for Hollywood. “R.I.P.D.” follows recent fiascoes “The Lone Ranger,” starring Johnny Depp, “Pacific Rim” and Will Smith’s “After Earth,” all of which were non-sequels.

As for Universal, the studio was having a very strong 2013 until “R.I.P.D.”: “Fast & Furious 6″ earned a massive $700 million worldwide and most recently, “Despicable Me 2″ dominated worldwide markets.

Opening in 10 international locations Friday, “R.I.P.D.” was co-produced by Original Film and Dark Horse Entertainment.

Zombies are over, as well as overdone. We just had “World War Z” last month. The movie is a vehicle for a has-been actor. That’s been overdone lately. The concept is mediocre. That the movie is a dud is no surprise. Unfortunately, the message this sends to studio management is to keep cranking out those sequels, remakes, spinoffs, and comic-book derivatives.

How pitiful Variety is still desperately trying to label Pacific Rim as a bomb or a “fiasco” in this article while it outperformed their initial reports greatly, and managed to do extremely well internationally while it was still to be released in all major markets. But hey editorial policy dictates it must be a bomb so let’s all go with it! Pacific Rim, besides being the best blockbuster of the year, is well on its way to make its budget back, and has great numbers for a new property, expect a sequel.

So the film industry FINALLY figured out that we are not all mindless idiots out here????? Almost 50s are remakes, poor ones at that. Can’t you come up with omething new? Oh yea, obviously you can’t since you are having all these bombs. Come up with something original and that has some substance. I have been a movie watcher since I was very young. With all the new filmi ng tecniques, you would think they could come up with something BETTER then in the 50’s!! Most are garbage with thoughtless or stupid plots. The same goes for TV. Stupid reality shows Run rampant. The worst being “here comes Honey Boo Boo”. For god’s sake, we aren’t THAT STUPID!!!

Yep, they’ve been doing it all summer and are only interested in “creating” bad buzz and bad news and then waiting with relish for this film to be a failure so they can say “told ya so!” It’s like the poisonous internet mindset on forums like Aint It Cool, where every film will “suck” and nobody appears to like a single film made since 1988 has seeped into the “real media”. Now I’m nt saying R.I.P.D will be a great film and make a fortune (even though it is based on a comic from over a decade ago, not a “pitch”, but this ghoulish s bomb making culture needs to stop.

Oh and how many times? Pacific Rim is NOT a &*(($% “failure”/”fiasco”/”bomb”. It has been out for 1 WEEK add has NOT opened in the 2 or 3 markets where it was always planning to make the bulk of its money. t could make over $250m from China, Russia, Japan, South Korea and Thailand alone! (Transformers 3 made over $350m from that same group, and this is much closer to the genre that thrive and were invented in the Orient than that film. Not to mention that it is grossing ahead of films like World War Z (another film they were sad to see succeeding.) Rise of The Apes and Prometheus, all of which grossed at least $250m internationally. So whilst it isn’t guaranteed to be a hit, the evidence actually suggest that the film is well on the way to breaking even, at least, at the GLOBAL box office; you can’t call BOMB on North American takings alone any more!

Also whilst you may expect a trade magazine to point out that, for safety’s sake all film producing entities around the world, not just Hollywood, have relied upon adapting existing media and earlier films since about the first year of the film business; and this unhappy string of potential disappoints shows why; you don’t expect tem to effectively say, Hollywood shouldn’t be taking risks on original films! Sequels are the way forward, and only sequels. Blockbusters should stop trying to be creative.

Quote:- “Still, the chilly reception is a wake-up call for Hollywood….all of which were non-sequels” A wake up call? To dump risk taking on blockbuster style films?

(Lone Ranger may be a Western, but it surely still has a chance to hit it big internationally; and even After Earth (all but guaranteed to fail the minute Shyamalan was hired) is going to more than double its $130m production budget. There’s a difference between a fill that under-performs and doesn’t quite make it and a disaster that almost nobody went to see at all

I absolutely agree. People forget about the global markets and just focus on the American release. Several movies that underperform in the States do double numbers in the international markets, especially when actors from international countries (England, Spain, France, Asia, Australia, etc.) appear in the film. I think it’s unnesscary for films like Pacific Rim to be called a disappointment when it’s clearly gonna be huge in Asia. The blogging these days, they’re extremely dangerous.

I’ve actually saw this movie last night. It is hilarious. I totally agree that media outlets can create positive or negative buzz long before a movie opens. I trust my own judgment, and most of the time I come out of the theater wondering if the reviewer & I saw the same movie!

I agree with Bill, the very first comment. Media outlets on all platforms CREATE good or bad performing movies, regardless of whether they’re bad or good. If the “media” told everyone to go to a particular movie, everyone would go. It would be a great experiment. I generally ignore most reviewers.

Absolutely agree, and it’s getting tiring and depressing. Variety is just rubbernecking before the accident and not doing any of us any favors. Positive thinking required in this business. Doomsayers, go back to your hole.

How is this a surprise? “Men in Black” pretty much did this; making the cops post-life “zombies” isn’t much of a stretch. There is virtually nothing “original” about this movie, and I sympathize with Bridges and Reynolds; two very talented actors – the money must’ve been great. The problem is making movies off of “pitches” rather than actual scripts or stories….Story, kids; look it up.

I agree, they should be buying scripts, instead of pitches. There are a ton of new writers out there with great original scripts that have great story. They could buy them cheaper and make more of them.